Mary Barton Essay - Mary Barton: A Tale of Manchester Life, Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell - eNotes.com Mary Barton: A Tale of Manchester Life, Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell link Link Mary Barton: A Tale of Manchester Life Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell The following entry presents criticism of Gaskell's novel Mary Barton: A Tale of Manchester Life (1848). See also, Cranford Criticism and Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell Criticism. Gaskell's first novel, Mary Barton, offers a sympathetic representation of the lives of the working class during a period of rapid industrialization and economic depression. Set in the manufacturing hub of nineteenth-century England, Manchester, the work combines the characteristics of a sentimental romance with the features of a social-problem novel—a genre that was at the height of its popularity during this time. Biographical Information Gaskell, the daughter of a Unitarian minister, was born in London to Elizabeth and William Stevenson on September 29, 1810. Her mother died a year after Gaskell was born, and she was sent to live in rural Cheshire with an aunt. There she attended a school for girls and studied languages and the fine arts.

In 1831 Gaskell traveled to Newcastle, Edinburgh, and Manchester, where she met William Gaskell, a clergyman with the Unitarian Church, who later taught literature and history at Manchester New College. They married in 1831 and had six children, two of whom died in infancy. Gaskell apparently began writing Mary Barton as a distraction from the grief she experienced when her second child, William, died of scarlet fever in 1845. Encouraged by the success of the novel, Gaskell went on to write several short stories, two novellas, and four more novels: Cranford (1851-53); Ruth (1853); North and South (1855); and Sylvia's Lovers (1863). In 1857 she produced The Life of Charlotte Brontë, her only attempt at biography; it was far less successful than her fictional work. Financially secure, Gaskell devoted considerable time to various charitable causes and to maintaining an extensive correspondence with other writers such as Brontë and George Eliot.

She died in Manchester in 1865 while working on her sixth novel, the unfinished Wives and Daughters (1864-66). Plot and Major Characters The title character of Mary Barton is a young woman from a working-class family living in Manchester in 1839, during a time of severe economic distress and political unrest caused by Parliament's rejection of the reform-oriented Chartist petition. Mary's father John, considered by some scholars to be the novel's true main character, is driven to crime by the desperate conditions of life among the workers in the cotton mill. The novel opens with an outing by the workers to Green Heys Fields, outside the town proper, followed by the return of the Barton family to their humble but well-kept home. The family's fortunes soon decline, however, when Mary's mother dies and her father is forced out of work. The other families of the town share a similar fate, and although the poor try to assist each other, Manchester's wealthy families, particularly the mill owners, are indifferent to the workers' suffering. John Barton is chosen to represent the local trade union in delivering the Chartist petition to London.

When he returns, disheartened by the petition's failure, he becomes increasingly bitter and sullen, chewing opium to stave off hunger. The trade union to which he belongs decides to murder Harry Carson, the son of the mill owner—in retaliation for the death by starvation of one of the worker's children—and it is Barton who draws the lot to perform the deed. Jem Wilson, another worker and one of Mary's suitors, is accused of the crime, and Mary must try to clear his name without implicating her father. Originally a vain and frivolous young girl, Mary matures during the course of the novel into a serious, socially responsible woman. She initially accepts the attentions of Harry Carson, believing marriage to the son of a rich mill owner to be her only chance of escaping poverty and helping her father. Eventually, though, she rejects Carson, who in any event never intended to marry her, and acknowledges her love for Jem. The novel concludes with the revelation of the real murderer, Jem's release, and Mr. Carson's reconciliation with the dying John Barton. Mary and Jem marry and emigrate to Canada to escape the problems of urban industrialization and to start a new life together.

Major Themes Mary Barton was written at the end of a decade that saw Britain's first major economic depression of the industrial era, and the novel describes in realistic detail the hardships that depression caused for the members of the working class. Gaskell's aim was to alert the middle and upper classes about a situation they generally ignored—out of convenience—and to effect social and economic reform and relief for the poor. Gaskell, in the preface to the work, stated that her intention was to convey information about the state of mind of workers who were “sore and irritable against the rich, the even tenor of whose seemingly happy lives appeared to increase the anguish caused by the lottery-like nature of their own.” Mary Barton also suggests that the rich consider change only out of self-interest—especially to avoid the eruption of violence as a result of those “sore and irritable” feelings, as seen with the murder of Carson's son. The novel offers two possible responses by the poor to the poverty and destitution they face: resignation, exemplified by Alice Wilson; or rebellion, exemplified by John Barton.

Barton's failure to accept his condition makes him seek revenge on the upper class; he wants one of the mill owners to experience firsthand what the poor experience all too often—the death of a child. In fact, the suffering of children as a result of the evils of industrialization is one of the novel's most powerful themes—there are several episodes involving children who are lost, injured, or starving to death. The generosity of the poor toward their fellow sufferers is also apparent in the novel and is best illustrated by the instance in which Mary, despite her preoccupation with her own desperate situation, returns to a Italian street performer to give him the last bit of bread in the house. Similarly, the attempt by John Barton and George Wilson to help the dying Ben Davenport is contrasted with the indifference of the Carson family to their employee's condition. Vivid pictures of the squalor of the Davenport household are contrasted with detailed descriptions of the Carson's luxuriously appointed home, thus illustrating the enormous gap between rich and poor as well as the inability of the rich to understand the desperation of the workers.

Such misunderstandings, silences, and general failures of the members of the two classes to communicate with one another account for much of the suffering that is a main theme of Mary Barton. Additionally, the themes of forgiveness and redemption are apparent in the senior Carson's forgiveness of his son's killer. United by the sorrow they feel for the loss of their loved ones, Carson and Barton abandon their adversarial relationship as the latter is dying at the novel's conclusion. Finally, the theme of hope is manifest in the relocation of Jem and Mary to Canada as well as in the birth of their infant son. Critical Reception Early reviews of Mary Barton were very favorable, and the novel's immediate success turned the unknown Gaskell into a celebrity. The book was not only popular with readers, but also garnered praise from such literary notables as Charles Dickens and Thomas Carlyle. A. B.

Hopkins suggests that this novel was superior to similar examples of the social problem genre and that it “made the social novel respectable.” Hopkins claims that it “was the first novel to combine sincerity of purpose, convincing portrayal of character, and a largely unprejudiced picture of certain aspects of industrial life.” Critics don't necessarily agree, however, on whether that picture of working-class life is realistic or not. While John Lucas considers Mary Barton an improvement over other social problem novels in terms of realism, he nonetheless believes that Gaskell sidesteps the full implications of the workers' desperate situation by having John Barton commit murder. The murder, and Carson's forgiveness of the act, allowed Gaskell to simplify the social issues raised by the novel, according to Lucas, because it “offered the way out of her problem with Barton, his so awkwardly leading her to the exposure of false hopes she dare not abandon.” As a result Gaskell can conclude the novel with her middle-class liberal belief in the possibility of reform intact. Margaret Ganz agrees, claiming that “the weakest section of the novel is that in which Mrs. Gaskell offers a possible solution for the alienation so dramatically exemplified in John Barton's struggles.

The concluding sections of the novel project her conviction, already suggested in earlier chapters, that a basic humanity is the only standard for successful relations between masters and men.” Scholars have disagreed on the possible sources for the representation of working-class life in Mary Barton; some believe Gaskell drew exclusively on her own observations of Manchester workers, while others, such as Michael Wheeler and Monica Correa Fryckstedt, have suggested that Gaskell's familiarity with earlier industrial fiction also provided inspiration for the novel. Wheeler feels that the influence of earlier literature is one of the work's strong points. Some critics have suggested that the social problem plot of Mary Barton is weakened by the addition of the romance plot, to which it is apparently unrelated. Jack L.

Culross, however, answers charges that the novel lacks unity because of the pairing of the two narrative strands, claiming that “both plots are important because their themes counterpoint each other.” Jem and Mary's migration to Canada, a new land unsullied by the problems associated with Manchester, provides, according to Culross, “a fitting ending to a novel not about industrialism, but about hope.” Patsy Stoneman also believes the domestic plot line is important in order for the novel to develop “a contrast between two ethical systems, that of the working class, based on caring and cooperation, and that of the middle class, based on ownership, authority and the law.” Marjorie Stone believes that scholarly concern with the two plots has implications for gender politics; she maintains that “those who divide the world of Mary Barton into an implicitly or explicitly male political sphere and a female private sphere, or who split the ‘social-problem’ or ‘tragic’ from the ‘romance’ or ‘domestic’ plot of the novel, endorse gender-inflected paradigms that Gaskell's own novelistic practice repeatedly subverts.” Lisa Surridge has studied Gaskell's representations of masculinity in Mary Barton and concludes that although middle-class men in the world

 of the novel are usually not portrayed as nurturing or represented as “real men,” Gaskell's work is unique in presenting a “pattern of working-class men caring for children,” as well as several male characters acting as nurses to the sick and injured, and proposes a new paradigm for manhood.

Pearl L. Brown answers those critics who charge that Margaret Hale, the heroine in Gaskell's North and South, is a more highly evolved female character than Mary Barton. Brown suggests that the years between the publication of the two novels represented, at least in Gaskell's view, a decline rather than a period of progress in the condition of women. Start Free Trial Start your free trial with eNotes to access more than 30,000 study guides. Get help with any book. Nineteenth-Century Disability: Cultures & Contexts | Mary Barton Mary Barton Image Mary Barton. Frontispiece. C. M. Relyea, illustrator. Elizabeth Gaskell, Mary Barton. New York: The Century Co., 1906. Scan by Jennifer Janechek.

Introduction References to disability abound in Elizabeth Gaskell’s Mary Barton: A Tale of Manchester Life (1848): Margaret experiences progressive blindness from cataracts (though at the end of the novel she is said to regain her sight); the aging Alice becomes blind, deaf, and is eventually incapacitated by a paralytic stroke; and some of the hand-loom weavers are disfigured by vitriol attacks from the striking factory workers. But perhaps the most historically situated instance of disability in the novel is that experienced by Mrs. Jane Wilson, who is introduced to us as “a delicate, fragile-looking woman, limping in her gait” (7, ch. 1). As the passage below indicates, Mrs. Wilson received some sort of orthopedic injury that gave her a permanent limp while working in a factory. John Barton tells his daughter, Mary, that “[s]he cotched [caught] her side again a wheel” (87). Her injury likely resulted from contact with a flywheel, which the OED defines as “[a] wheel with a heavy rim, attached to a revolving shaft, in order either to regulate the motion of the machinery, or to accumulate power.” [i] Mr.

Barton notes that the accident occurred “afore wheels were boxed up” (87), an apparent anachronism because according to Shirley Foster, editor of the 2006 Oxford World’s Classics edition of Mary Barton, the novel is supposed to be set around 1834-40 (ix), and the mandatory “boxing up” of wheels did not occur until the passage of the Factory Act of 1844. Mrs. Wilson’s injury serves a larger function than drawing attention to factory reform, for it connects with the novel’s broader project of insisting upon the common bond of the Manchester factory workers and the mill owners—an interdependent relationship that, in her view, ultimately promoted the progress of society. In her preface, Gaskell explains that the factory worker and the mill owner are “bound to each other by common interests”—that the suffering of one must affect the other (3). In this worldview, the condition of a worker’s body discloses the successes or evils of industrialization, and a body injured in a factory incident would necessarily indict a physically harmful system of labor promoted by capitalism. Mrs.

Wilson’s disability would thus present a problem to the middle-class reader: it would force the reader to confront his or her involvement in perpetuating a factory system that physically damaged human bodies. Note Five Fascinating Facts about Elizabeth Gaskell | Interesting Literature Five Fascinating Facts about Elizabeth Gaskell Posted by interestingliterature Interesting facts from the life of Mrs Gaskell, Victorian novelist, author of North and South 1. She wrote her first novel to console herself when she was grieving for the death of her son. The Gaskells’ only son Willie died of scarlet fever in 1845. Partly as a response to his death, Mrs Gaskell – she is still often known by the married title, although some readers now refer to her as Elizabeth Gaskell – set about writing Mary Barton, her ‘tale of Manchester life’. It was published in 1848 to huge acclaim. 2. Elizabeth Gaskell wrote an 1859 story called ‘The Half-Brothers’ which features a collie dog named Lassie. Whether this was the inspiration for the series of popular films featuring – you’ve guessed it – a collie dog named Lassie is not known.

But if it wasn’t then it’s a nice coincidence. Gaskell’s Lassie even saves the day at the end of the story, much as the more famous twentieth-century Lassie would play the hero (or, rather, heroine) in a short story by Eric Knight, as well as the film Lassie Come Home (and sequels). 3. Mrs Gaskell wrote other things besides realist fiction set in the nineteenth century. The most celebrated of these is Lois the Witch (1861), a dark tale set against the backdrop of the 1692 Salem witch trials in America. 4. The first recorded use of ‘squiffy’ as a slang term for ‘drunk’ is in a letter by Gaskell written in the mid-1850s. What’s more, the first known use of the glorious word ‘sesquipedalian’ to refer to somebody who is fond of using long words is in Elizabeth Gaskell’s 1853 work Cranford.

Gaskell wrote Cranford for Charles Dickens ‘s periodical Household Words, and indeed, Dickens learnt much from Gaskell’s realist attention to the grimy and unpleasant realities of working-class city life: his 1854 novel Hard Times is seen as essentially Dickens’s attempt to ‘do a Gaskell novel’. 5. She wrote a biography of Charlotte Brontë. Published in 1857, two years after Charlotte’s death, The Life of Charlotte Brontë is considered among the finest of Victorian literary biographies. Fellow novelist Margaret Oliphant described it as a new kind of biography – more than this, it is ‘for every woman dropped out of sight’. Gaskell has not dropped out of sight, and her novels – especially North and South, Mary Barton, and even the unfinished Wives and Daughters – continue to recruit enthusiastic readers with each new generation. Elizabeth Gaskell herself died in 1865, aged 55, from a heart attack. In September 2010, for the bicentenary of her birth, she was commemorated with a memorial panel in Poets’ Corner, Westminster Abbey . Image: Elizabeth Gaskell in c.

1860, author unknown, via Wikimedia Commons . Share this: Very interesting. Aside from North and South, I knew next to nothing about Mrs. Gaskell. Thanks for adding a little culture to my morning! pickinicki21 Mary Barton: A Tale of Manchester Life :: Essays Open Document Mary Barton: A Tale of Manchester Life Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell was born in London on Setpember 29th, 1810 to William and Elizabeth Stevenson. Her father William was a former Unitarian minister who, after retiring from the ministry, “combined farming, writing, and teaching before being appointed Keeper of the Records to the Treasury" (Allott 10). Her mother, Elizabeth died just over a year after giving birth and, consequently, while still an infant, Gaskell was sent off to live with her aunt, Hannah Lumb who resided in Heathside, Knutford. Throughout her young life, up until her 1832 marriage, Gaskell lived in various places around England including Stratford-on-Avon, where she received some education, Newcastle, Edinburgh, and Manchester.

It was in Manchester that she met her husband, William Gaskell, a minister’s assistant, “who was eventually to [become] Senior Minister and remain at Cross Street [Unitarian Chapel in Manchester] for the rest of a long, active life (Allott 11).” From 1832 to 1848, after her marriage to William Gaskell, Mrs. Gaskell lived a life of domesticity, giving birth to 6 children, with 4 surviving. Besides raising the 4 surviving children, Gaskell worked with her husband to aid, comfort, and minister to the poor of Manchester. In 1845, Gaskell suffered the haunting loss of her only son to scarlet fever at just nineteen months old. With the encouragement of her husband, Gaskell turned her grief towards writing, and her literary career began.

Over the course of her literary career, Gaskell wrote “six novels, several nouvelles, a biography, about thirty short stories, a number of sketches and articles, and a few poems (Allott 8).” The novels, in chronological order were Mary Barton (1848), Cranford (1853), Ruth (1853), North and South (1855), Slyvia’s Lovers (1863), and Cousin Phillis (1864). The biography was of her good friend and fellow authoress, Charlotte Brontë, The Life of Charlotte Brontë (1857). Gaskell’s career included two controversies, one over her portrayal of the fallen woman in society in Ruth the other over accusations of libel from portrayals in The Life of Charlotte Brontë. Despite these controversies, Gaskell remained a popular literary figure throughout her life, even enjoying a friendship and working relationship with perhaps the most popular writer of the day, Charles Dickens, to whose Household Words publication she became a frequent contributor.

When Gaskell passed away in 1865, The Athenaeum “rated [Gaskell] ‘if not the most popular, with small question, the most powerful and finished female novelist of an epoch singularly rich in female novelists’(Victorian Web). How to Cite this Page MLA Citation: ” Mary Barton: A Tale of Manchester Life is the novel that launched Gaskell’s career and brought her immediate success. The novel “was first published anonymously, in two volumes, in October 1848 (Gaskell xxxi)” by Chapman and Hall. “Gaskell mad a last-minute proposal that the pseudonym ‘Stephen Berwick’ be used but the novel had already gone to the press (Gaskell xxxi).” Several changes were made to the original text before publication. The original title of the novel had been John Barton but was changed reluctantly, at the behest of publisher Edward Chapman, to Mary Barton with the subtitle “A Manchester Love Story”. This, too, was changed to “A Tale of Manchester Life”. Dialect glosses were also added. A second edition, this time attributed to Gaskell, was published with an “explanatory preface” requested by Chapman.

Apparently, Gaskell had also been forced to make an unwanted addition to the novel as a result of the novel coming up short of the required length. This addition, according to the Penguin Classics edition’s ‘Note on the Text’, is likely Chapter 37. The third edition of the novel in 1849 includes small corrections, “adoption of the dialect spelling forms which Gaskell intended, the provision of individual chapter titles, and the general expansion of the footnotes (Gaskell xxxi).” While the popular reception of Mary Barton was good enough to make Gaskell a minor literary celebrity, the critical reception was mixed. Most critics praised the power and authority of Mrs. Gaskell’s account of the life of workers in Manchester, but cited stylistic flaws like an excess of pathos and sentimentality, specifically pertaining to the books ending, which manages to provide a pastoral happy ending to what is otherwise a very sad, industrial tale.

One critic of such a mixed opinion was Maria Edgeworth, who in a letter late published wrote: “The story is ingenious and interesting—the heroine is in a new and good difficulty between her guilty father and her innocent noble lover—It is a situation fit for the highest Greek Tragedy yet not unsuited to the humble life of a poor tender girl—heroism, as well as love in a cottage…The fault of this book is that it leaves such a melancholy I almost feel hopeless impression…I feel that there are too many deaths in the book—Death is an evil common to all and not a peculiar moral punishment…[it is not] advisable for a good moral writer to have recourse to this source of pathos (Harris 177).” Elizabeth Barrett Browning, also in a letter later published, echoes these sentiments, saying: “[In Mary Barton] there is power and truth…but I wish half the book away. It is so tedious every now and then; and besides I want more beauty, more air from the univeral world—these class-books must always be deffective as works of art…(Harris 179)” There were some genuinely and wholly positive reviews of the work.

William Ellis and Mary Turner Ellis praised Gaskell’s work highly in their review in the Westminster and Foreign Quarterly Review in 1849: “[Mary Barton] is a most striking book…it is an appropriate and valuable contribution to the literature of the age. It embodies the dominant feeling of our time…that the ignorance, destitution and vice which pervade…our society, must be got rid of.” William Rathbone Greg exemplifies a certain strain of criticism against the novel, specifically that Gaskell’s treatment of the manufacturing class in the novel is unrepresentative and unfair and that she is overly sympathetic to the working class: “The literary merit of the work is in some respects of a very high order…In short her work has been clearly a ‘labour of love,’ and has been written with a most earnest and benevolent purpose.

We can conscientiously pronounce it to be a production of great excellence, and of still greater promise…The whole book, too, is pervaded by one fatally false idea…that the poor are to look to the rich, and not themselves, for relief and rescue…an impression more utterly erroneous, more culpably shallow, more lamentably mischievous it is difficult to conceive (Harris 177-178).” Even Greg feels the need to point out in his somewhat scathing critique the positive attributes possessed by Mary Barton. Ultimately, though the novel’s critical reception was highly mixed, as shown, the positive attributes more than explain Gaskell’s continued literary success and relevance. Thus, while Mary Barton had its flaws, it was more than adequate for a first attempt. Works Cited Allot, Mirriam. Elizabeth Gaskell. London: Longmans, Green,& Co., 1960. Gaskell, Elizabeth. Mary Barton: A Tale of Manchester Life. London: Penguin, 1998. Harris, Laurie Lanzen, Sheial Fitzgerald, eds. Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism. Volume 5. Detroit: Gale Research Company, 1984.

“Elizabeth Gaskell: Biography.” The Victorian Web. Elizabeth Gaskell Essay - Gaskell, Elizabeth - eNotes.com Elizabeth Gaskell Essay - Gaskell, Elizabeth Gaskell, Elizabeth 1810-1865 English novelist, short story writer, biographer, and essayist. See also Elizabeth Gaskell Literary Criticism. One of the most popular writers of the Victorian era, Gaskell is principally remembered for her portraits of nineteenth-century provincial life in the novels Cranford (1853) and Wives and Daughters: An Every-day Story (1866). An esteemed storyteller, she also wrote a considerable assortment of short fiction, much of which was published in the weekly journals of Charles Dickens. Dickens, who had read Gaskell's popular social novel Mary Barton: A Tale of Manchester Life (1848), asked her to submit her new work to his Household Words. This encouraged her to write "Lizzie Leigh: A Domestic Tale" and provided her with a rewarding publishing outlet. Other short works, including "Lois the Witch" and "The Grey Woman" were originally published in Dickens's All the Year Round, prior to being released in collections.

In all, Gaskell wrote over forty short stories and sketches, and several novellas. Many of these works are genre pieces—Gothic mystery stories or historical fiction—and many are comedies or darker tales of varying quality, which until recently have been somewhat neglected by critics in favor of her longer works, particularly Cranford. Biographical Information Elizabeth Cleghorn Stevenson was born September 29, 1810 in Chelsea, London, but following her mother's death thirteen months later, moved to the quiet town of Knutsford in Cheshire with her aunt. She had little contact with her father from that time on, but the town of Knutsford became central to much of her writing and the principal location for her novels Cranford and Wives and Daughters. While on a visit to Manchester—the setting for her first novel, Mary Barton—she met the Unitarian minister, William Gaskell, whom she later married. She became active in the liberal Unitarian community and occupied herself with her domestic duties, including raising four children, and traveling. One of her trips took her to Haworth where she met Charlotte Brontë.

The two became close friends, and Gaskell later undertook the writing of her biography, though its publication in 1857 was marred by charges of misrepresentation. Mortified by allegations of dishonesty, Gaskell did not attempt another full-length work until 1863, instead focusing on her production of shorter fiction. In 1865, exhausted from continuous work and persistent ill-health, Gaskell collapsed suddenly while visiting her Hampshire country home. She died of heart failure, leaving her novel Wives and Daughters unfinished. Major Works of Short Fiction While predominately concerned with social issues, especially the role of women in Victorian society, Gaskell's many other interests often surfaced in her shorter works of fiction. "Mr. Harrison's Confessions," like the later Cranford, reveals her ability to capture the nuance of a small and vanishing town's way of life. The story, which relies on misunderstood gossip, demonstrates Gaskell's characteristically light and gently ironic humor. "Curious, If True" represents Gaskell's exploitation of a fantasy motif, as its somewhat dim-witted narrator fails to recognize that he has stumbled into the dwelling of several aging fairy-tale characters, including Snow White and Cinderella.

"The Old Nurse's Story," a tale of ghosts told from a feminine perspective, exemplifies Gaskell's work in the gothic mode, while "A Dark Night's Work" details a murder motivated by the inequities of social class. In "Lois the Witch" Gaskell demonstrates her talent for historical fiction. Inspired by the Salem witch trials, the story dramatizes themes of intolerance and fear. Among her novellas, Cousin Phillis resembles such realistic works as Mary Barton and North and South, and like them illustrates Gaskell's concern for social reconciliation during the industrial revolution. Its story follows the changes brought about by the construction of a railroad near the quiet, pastoral Hope Farm. The heroine of The Moorland Cottage (1850), Maggie Browne, faces a conflict between her social responsibilities and her own personal fulfillment. Certain elements of the story appear in Gaskell's later works of realistic fiction, especially Wives and Daughters. Critical Reception Despite her popularity in the mid-1800s, for the first century after her death critics tended to view Gaskell as a limited writer whose novel Cranford alone kept her in the English canon. Her work, however, has since been reappraised.

Scholars have noted her ability to convincingly convey the emotional states of her characters and have recognized that she indeed wrote in the mode of Realism even before its proponents, like her friend George Eliot, had articulated its tenets. Feminists have seen in Gaskell's short stories a sustained examination of the situation of women in a patriarchal society, especially in characters such as Thekla of "Six Weeks in Heppenheim" and Ellinor Wilkins of "A Dark Night's Work." And, while a portion of her short fiction has been perceived as ephemeral in nature, evidence both of the lasting appeal of much of her work and of the historical realities of her writing—she faced tremendous difficulties in a literary world dominated by male publishers and critics—has, according to modern critics, only magnified Gaskell's considerable achievements.

More Content: Gaskell, Elizabeth (hide) Elizabeth Gaskell Elizabeth Gaskell Elizabeth Gaskell 'Even in the stillness of that dead-cold weather, I had heard no sound of little battering hands upon the window-glass...' A phantom child roams the Northumberland moors, while a host of fairytale characters gone to seed gather in the dark, dark woods in these two surprising tales of the uncanny from the great Victorian novelist. Introducing Little Black Classics: 80 books for Penguin's 80th birthday. Little Black Classics celebrate the huge range and diversity of Penguin Classics, with books from around the world and across many centuries. They take us from a balloon ride over Victorian London to a garden of blossom in Japan, from Tierra del Fuego to 16th-century California and the Russian steppe. Here are stories lyrical and savage; poems epic and intimate; essays satirical and inspirational; and ideas that have shaped the lives of millions. Elizabeth Gaskell (1810-1865).

Gaskell's works available in Penguin Classics are Cranford, Cranford and Cousin Phillis, Gothic Tales, Mary Barton, North and South, Ruth, Sylvia's Lovers, The Life of Charlotte Brontë and Wives and Daughters. The Penguin English Library Edition of Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell "Eh, miss, but that be a rare young lady! She do have such pretty coaxing ways ..." Seventeen-year-old Molly Gibson worships her widowed father. But when he decides to remarry, Molly's life is thrown off course by the arrival of her vain, shallow and selfish stepmother. There is some solace in the shape of her new stepsister Cynthia, who is beautiful, sophisticated and irresistible to every man she meets. Soon the girls become close, and Molly finds herself cajoled into becoming a go-between in Cynthia's love affairs. But in doing so, Molly risks ruining her reputation in the gossiping village of Hollingford - and jeopardizing everything with the man she is secretly in love with. The Penguin English Library - 100 editions of the best fiction in English, from the eighteenth century and the very first novels to the beginning of the First World War.

Elizabeth Gaskell The Penguin English Library Edition of Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskell "The rich know nothing of the trials of the poor; I say, if they don't know, they ought to know. We're their slaves as long as we can work; we pile up their fortunes with the sweat of our brows, and yet we are to live as separate as if we were in two worlds" Mary Barton, the heroine of Elizabeth Gaskell's novel, is beautiful but has been born poor. Her father fights for the rights of his fellow workers, but Mary wants to make a better life for them both. She rashly decides to reject her lover Jem, a struggling engineer, in the hope of marrying the rich mill-owner's son Henry Carson and securing a safe future. But when Henry is shot down in the street and Jem becomes the main suspect, Mary finds herself hopelessly torn between them. She also discovers an unpleasant truth - one that could bring tragedy upon everyone, and threatens to destroy her. The Penguin English Library - 100 editions of the best fiction in English, from the eighteenth century and the very first novels to the beginning of the First World War. Elizabeth Gaskell With an essay by Anna Unsworth.

'Just at this moment he passed us on the stairs, making such a graceful bow, in reply to which I dropped a curtsey - all foreigners have such polite manners, one catches something of it' Cranford is an affectionate and often moving portrait of genteel poverty and intertwined lives in a nineteenth-century village. One of Elizabeth Gaskell's most beloved works, it centres on a community dominated by women and governed by old-fashioned ways. The formidable Miss Deborah Jenkyns and the kindly Miss Matty's days revolve around card games, tea, thriftiness and an endless appetite for scandal, until change comes into their world - whether it is the modern ideas of Captain Brown, a bank collapse, rumours of burglars or an unexpected reappearance from the past. The Penguin English Library - 100 editions of the best fiction in English, from the eighteenth century and the very first novels to the beginning of the First World War.

Elizabeth Gaskell The Penguin English Library edition of North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell 'How am I to dress up in my finery, and go off and away to smart parties, after the sorrow I have seen today?' Elizabeth Gaskell's compassionate, richly dramatic novel features one of the most original and fully-rounded female characters in Victorian fiction, Margaret Hale. It shows how, forced to move from the country to an industrial northern town, she develops a passionate sense of social justice, and a turbulent relationship with mill-owner John Thornton. North and South depicts a young woman discovering herself, in a nuanced portrayal of what divides people, and what brings them together. The Penguin English Library - 100 editions of the best fiction in English, from the eighteenth century and the very first novels to the beginning of the First World War. Elizabeth Gaskell (and others) To mark the publication of Stop What You're Doing and Read This!, a collection of essays celebrating reading, Vintage Classics are releasing 12 limited edition themed ebook 'bundles', to tempt readers to discover and rediscover great books.

LITTLE WOMEN & GOOD WIVES Life in the March household is full of adventures and accidents as the four very different March sisters follow their varying paths to adulthood, always maintaining the special bond between them. Sensible Meg, impetuous Jo, shy Beth and artistic Amy each have to confront different challenges as they grow up together and attempt to learn how to be both happy and good. THE CRANFORD CHRONICLES Follow the small absurdities and major tragedies in the lives of the people of Cranford, a small Cheshire market town, during one extraordinary year. The railway is pushing its way relentlessly towards the town from Manchester, bringing fears of migrant workers and the breakdown of law and order. The arrival of handsome young Doctor Harrison causes yet further agitation not just because of his revolutionary methods but also because of his effect on the hearts of the ladies. Meanwhile Miss Matty's memories of long-ago heartache are rekindled. Elizabeth Gaskell Set in the watchful society of Hollingford, this is a warm tale of love and longing. Molly Gibson is the spirited, loyal daughter of the local doctor. Their peaceful close-knit home is turned upside down when Molly's father decides to remarry.

Whilst Molly struggles to adjust to her snobbish stepmother, she forms a close relationship with her glamorous new stepsister Cynthia. The strength of this friendship is soon tested as their lives become entwined with Squire Hamley and his two sons. Elizabeth Gaskell (and others) Mary Barton is beautiful but has been born poor. Her father fights for the rights of his fellow workers, but Mary wants to make a better life for them both. She rashly decides to reject her lover Jem, a struggling engineer, in the hope of marrying the rich mill-owner's son Henry Carson and securing a safe future. But when Henry is shot down in the street and Jem becomes the main suspect, Mary finds herself hopelessly torn between them. She also discovers an unpleasant truth - one that could bring tragedy upon everyone, and threatens to destroy her. Elizabeth Gaskell Fear of Satan becomes murder in the name of God. Newly orphaned, the God-fearing and heart-broken Lois is sent across the Atlantic to live with her uncle’s family in Salem, but on her arrival she finds herself the object of cruel hostility, potent jealousy and mad desire.

When the local Pastor’s daughters are contorted and convulsed by apparently satanic powers, the whole town is whipped into a hysterical witch hunt. And when Lois’s cousins start to resent her presence in their household, life becomes precarious and an old woman’s curse returns to haunt her. Elizabeth Gaskell Mary Barton is the pretty daughter of a factory worker who finds herself dreaming of a better life when the mill-owner's charming son, Henry, starts to court her. She rejects her childhood friend Jem's affections in the hope of marrying Henry and escaping from the hard and bitter life that is the fate of the workers, who are resentfully dependent on the callous mill-owners for their livelihoods. But when Henry is shot dead in the street Jem becomes the prime suspect and Mary finds her loyalties tested to the limit. Elizabeth Gaskell (and others) WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY JENNY UGLOW Milton is a sooty, noisy northern town centred around the cotton mills that employ most of its inhabitants. Arriving from a rural idyll in the south, Margaret Hale is initially shocked by the social unrest and poverty she finds in her new hometown.

However, as she begins to befriend her neighbours, and her stormy relationship with the mill-owner John Thornton develops, she starts to see Milton in a different light. Elizabeth Gaskell In this witty and poignant story the railway is pushing its way relentlessly towards the town from Manchester, bringing fears of migrant workers and the breakdown of law and order. The arrival of handsome young Doctor Harrison causes yet further agitation not just because of his revolutionary methods but also because of his effect on the hearts of the ladies. Meanwhile Miss Matty Jenkyns nurses her own broken heart after she was forced to give up the man she loved when she was a young girl. Elizabeth Gaskell (and others) From the author of North and South and Mary Barton, Elizabeth Gaskell's Cranford is a standalone publication of Elizabeth Gaskell's best-known work, with a critical introduction by Patricia Ingham in Penguin Classics.

Cranford depicts the lives and preoccupations of the inhabitants of a small village - their petty snobberies, appetite for gossip, and loyal support for each other in times of need This is a community that runs on cooperation and gossip, at the very heart of which are the daughters of the former rector: Miss Deborah Jenkyns and her sister Miss Matty, But domestic peace is constantly threatened in the form of financial disaster, imagined burglaries, tragic accidents, and the reapparance of long-lost relatives. to Lady Glenmire, who shocks everyone by marrying the doctor. When men do appear, such as 'modern' Captain Brown or Matty's suitor from the past, they bring disruption and excitement to the everyday life of Cranford. In her introduction, Patricia Ingham places the novel in its literary and historical context, and discusses the theme of female friendship and Gaskell's narrative technique. This edition also contains an account of Gaskell's childhood in Knutsford, on which Cranford is based, appendices on fashion and domestic duties supplemented by illustrations, a chronology of Gaskell's life and works, suggestions for further reading, and explanatory notes.

Elizabeth Gaskell (1810-65) was born in London, but grew up in the north of England in the village of Knutsford. In 1832 she married the Reverend William Gaskell and had four daughters, and one son who died in infancy. Her first novel, Mary Barton, was published in 1848, winning the attention of Charles Dickens, and most of her later work was published in his journals. She was also a lifelong friend of Charlotte Brontë, whose biography she wrote. If you enjoyed Cranford, you may like Jane Austen's Mansfield Park, also available in Penguin Classics.

Question: Which nineteenth century novelist wrote 'Mary Barton, A Tale of Manchester Life'?
Answer: ELIZABETH GASKELL